It has been a really good week, here on the blog. It was a heavy week, though. We took on some really difficult issues that the Church has often spoken about in hurtful, opinionated, and even hateful ways.

Thanks to all of you who read, commented, and shared this series. Thank you for engaging in this important discussion. Many of us who engaged in this discussion are part of the Church, and we have a responsibility to be part of the change.

I made a few observations this week, and would love to hear if you made any, as well.

1. Some of us Christ-followers “get” this message about love and grace. The amount of people that read the series, shared the series, and emailed about the series was so encouraging to me. And it wasn’t just about participation in this series that makes me feel like we’re getting it, it was what was being said. Keep it going (not the series, I mean the part about spreading love and grace).

2. People who don’t go to Church and don’t claim to be Christ-followers were really interested in this series. I’m not surprised. Unloving Christ-followers are very often cited as the reason people leave or are uninterested in the Church and/or Jesus. I know that it’s scary to base one’s belief in a God on that God’s followers (because people are imperfect, God is perfect), but let’s be honest, followers are evidence of the goodness of God. Let’s be known as good, loving, kind, and grace-filled Christ-followers – who knows, the world might listen up if we were.

3. Even in the midst of a discussion about how the church needs to embrace others with love, there were crickets on the blog the day we talked about sexual abuse. I mean crickets. Here’s the deal, I know how many people read that blog post- I can see the data, but there was only one comment that day. A blog post’s impact can’t necessarily be linked to comments, but on every other post that week, comments were made, ranging from “I’m so sorry”, to “thank you for sharing.” Friends, if we are going to be a place of healing, and a place that allows others to open up about painful things, we have to get better at talking comfortably about uncomfortable stuff. I think the lack of comments on that particular post was an interesting commentary on how the Church deals with this topic. Whether via blog comment or in real life “I don’t know what to say, but I’m sorry” or “I’m so sorry this happened to you” is a really good place to start.

4. I doubt we covered it all. If you are burning to write you own letter, do it. You can link up if you wish. At this point, we have summed it up, so there’s no deadline. Write it as you feel inclined, we can all come back to this.

Again, thank you for engaging in this discussion! You really give me hope for the Church and her potential to bring healing to a broken world.